Hillary Clinton goes mum on NSA, skirts surveillance fight

Last September, Hillary Clinton strode to a podium in Philadelphia to deliver what she advance-billed as a policy speech addressing the roiling controversy over government surveillance in a digital era.

“We are once again in the middle of some big, noisy debates. What are the demands of America’s global leadership in a changing world?” Clinton asked. “How do we provide both security and liberty at home and abroad? Every era faces its own questions and has to fashion its own answers, and we are no different.”

Clinton aides indicated at the time that she largely abandoned her planned speech at the National Constitution Center because President Barack Obama decided to address the nation that same night about his decision to seek congressional approval to use force in Syria. Indeed, she mentioned Obama’s imminent White House address and called for a “strong response” to the Syrian crisis.

While Clinton’s decision to put aside her original speech that night was understandable, her near silence on the issue since has been more open to question. As the national debate over the National Security Agency’s broad array of data collection programs has rolled on, courts, lawmakers, blue-ribbon panels and even Obama himself have weighed on the legality, effectiveness and wisdom of the snooping. Clinton has not.

But it’s not clear how long she can keep up the silent treatment: As she mulls a bid for the White House in 2016, she’s beginning to face pressure to outline her views on the surveillance issue more clearly.

Other potential 2016 contenders — ranging from Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) to Gov. Chris Christie (R-N.J.) to Gov. Martin O’Malley (D-Md.) — have weighed in. Paul, who has taken a staunchly libertarian stand against the NSA programs, filed a class-action lawsuit over the surveillancelast week. By contrast, Christie and O’Malley have warned about the dangers of retreating in the battle against terrorism.

Completely sidestepping such questions would seem odd — and probably unsustainable — if Clinton wants to remain close to the national political debate.

And while the surveillance issue has yet to become a real political barn burner, Clinton is eager to court two audiences highly focused on the matter: Internet-savvy liberal activists and wealthy tech industry donors.

In the 2008 race, the Democratic Party’s so-called netroots were wary of Clinton and largely gravitated toward Obama and former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.). Clinton’s potential 2016 campaign will need an army of enthusiastic, Web-oriented organizers — just the kind of people who seem most up in arms about the revelations from former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.

“People who care about surveillance and wiretapping care about it deeply,” said Adam Bonin, a Philadelphia lawyer and chairman of the board of Netroots Nation. “They see it as a fundamental issue of the government’s power over individuals.”

Asked whether a 2016 candidate could satisfy surveillance critics by echoing the kinds of reforms Obama laid out in a speech last month, Bonin said, “I don’t think that would satisfy them. … Many people saw that as too little too late.”

The other key audience, tech industry executives, has also been disappointed in Obama’s response and eager to embrace politicians promising more aggressive reforms. U.S.-based Internet and computer firms say global fears of NSA surveillance are hurting their bottom line and prompting foreign governments to propose responses that could splinter the Internet — hobbling one of America’s most successful industries.

“It has a serious impact,” said Donnie Fowler, an adviser to technology firms a former vice president of TechNet. “When you’re talking to Google or you’re talking to Intel, to have western Europe stand up and say, ‘We don’t trust you’ — that’s real money. Yes, they care about this issue. It’s not just a philosophical issue. It’s a real bottom-line issue.”

Fowler agreed that if Clinton simply adopted Obama’s announced reforms, many in Silicon Valley would be disappointed. But he said their business-related concerns cover a broad range of areas such as patent law, net neutrality and repatriation of profits, so falling short on the surveillance issue wouldn’t be a deal-breaker.

“People are not very happy about this hurting business, but it’s not the only issue they’ll care about next year or in 2016,” he said. “If a candidate takes a position industry doesn’t want or a candidate takes Obama’s position, [donors] might have a separate comment about the economic damage to the industry or damage to the free flow of information and they’ll wince, but then they’ll take their next bite of chicken or drink of iced tea,” he said.

In theory, Clinton’s low profile on the issue could give an opening to a liberal candidate looking to challenge her from the left. Whether such a candidate will emerge or be viable is far from clear, but it seems doubtful that the surveillance issue alone would be sufficient to fuel such a challenge.

Clinton’s decision not to give the surveillance speech last September may have also signaled a change in strategy for her and her camp. The Philadelphia talk was actually supposed to be the second in a series of addresses on significant policy issues. She delivered one, on voting rights, at an American Bar Association meeting in San Francisco last August. Clinton said at that speech that she planned a third address later in the fall on “American’s global leadership and our moral standing around the world.” That one, too, has never taken place.

Sources close to Clinton said her advisers ultimately concluded that delivering detailed speeches, particularly on a fast-moving issue like the surveillance debate, was not a good idea. New revelations about U.S. practices seem to emerge every week. And there is still no consensus among Democratic lawmakers about how to respond to the issue.

Any concrete changes she were to propose in the surveillance arena would immediately put her at odds with some in her party on Capitol Hill, where Democratic Clinton friends like Sens Dianne Feinstein of California and Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont have radically different ideas about what reforms are needed to the government’s so-called “bulk collection” programs.

In addition, the subject raises awkward questions about what Clinton knew during her four years as the administration’s top diplomat — both about domestic surveillance and about snooping on heads of state with whom she negotiated.

Fowler also said he thought it was a bad idea for Hillary Clinton to try to tackle the surveillance issue in a major address.